


A Human Reaction

by Anonymous



Category: Code Name: Eternity
Genre: Androids, Dealing with Human Emotions, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26585281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: After the events of “Fatal Error,” Dent reevaluates his human side.
Relationships: Albert Dent/David Banning
Collections: Anonymous





	A Human Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to repost a 15-year-old oneshot for an unknown fandom because I kinda still remember it fondly. If anyone reads this, I will be both surprised and grateful.

Albert Dent had said that he didn’t remember. But he had lied.

It was against his programming to lie to his creator. Dent justified it by telling himself that his only motive was self-preservation. If he had told Banning that he remembered the brief episode of insanity brought on by Ethaniel’s virus, then Banning would have tried to erase it. He might have erased something else by mistake, some important aspect of Dent’s personality.

He was a machine, he reminded himself. He wasn’t supposed to have a personality. He was just supposed to do his job.

But perhaps, in a machine as advanced as he, the development of some higher awareness was inevitable. One could hardly be surprised when a machine capable of independent thought began to develop emotions.

That was what the virus did to him. Enhanced those germs of emotion, brought them to the surface. How could any being exist like that for very long, he wondered, without going insane? Al those _feelings_ , completely devoid of logic. It had driven him to destroy himself, and the entire planet—and he would have succeeded, had Banning not interfered.

Banning.

In his insanity, Dent had insisted on calling him Dave. That was what humans did, as he understood. When they were intimate with each other, they used nicknames.

He had never thought of his relationship with Banning as particularly intimate until the virus. That was when he suddenly became aware of it. A twinge of feeling, a hint of something more than loyalty.

After Banning “fixed” him, the feeling went away. He had only the memory, which he regarded with curious uncertainty. He wasn’t built for this. He didn’t understand it It was a while before he knew enough to label it.

Albert Dent was in love.

Love alone was a thoroughly illogical emotion. Humans killed for it, died for it, gave up everything they knew to be close to that one person who probably didn’t even return the sentiment. But love for Banning was all the more confusing. Why would he feel so strongly for someone who used him, who treated him as a machine and not the person he had become?

Perhaps it was merely because Banning was the only person Dent really knew.

He also knew that he could never reveal this indiscretion, or Banning would erase his memory for sure.

Day by day, he endured the feeling’s slow return. When Banning looked at him, called his name, he felt something almost human. Banning wouldn’t understand. Worse than that, he would disapprove. Emotions make one weak, Banning would say.

But as long as he could still kill his enemies when necessary, Dent didn’t mind being weak sometimes. It was in those brief moments that he imagined Banning holding him, kissing his mouth. Dent wasn’t aroused by this in the human sense; he had no biological sex drive to be stimulated. But the imagined gesture of intimacy made him feel wanted, protected. He didn’t need to be protected. He was a killer. But the sense of vulnerability that these feelings gave didn’t seem as bad as Banning would have him think. Perhaps Dent was beginning to understand what it was like to be human.

His logic circuits told him that the feelings would never be reciprocated. Banning was far too cold. That his creation, meant to be the ultimate machine, had a greater emotive range than he did was nothing short of ultimate irony.

He put the feelings away where they wouldn’t affect his everyday workings. But there was always hope—another human emotion. Hope that Banning would change. They would have a lot of time together on this world after it was remade. Time for Banning, free from the distraction of planning genocide, to discover that emotions weren’t as bad as he believed. And time for Dent to help him.

He couldn’t wait to destroy humanity.


End file.
